Central to this success is the KIPP network's core "operating principle" of high expectations. "KIPP schools have clearly defined and measurable high expectations for academic achievement and conduct that makes no excuses based on the students' backgrounds." There is no secret as to how such expectations are upheld. They are achieved through "a range of formal and informal rewards and consequences for academic performance and behaviour".

The same thinking has been expressed by the current head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw. His achievements as headmaster of Mossbourne Academy in East London are now the stuff of legend, but bear repetition. The school had the same proportion of pupils on free school meals as the one where I teach, but 89 per cent of them obtain five A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. This is not achieved through a cynical focus on the C grade borderline, as Mossbourne also cultivates high achievers. Last year, 63 per cent of its pupils gained an A*-A grade in English literature GCSE, and 52 per cent of its A-level grades were A*-B. This places it in the top 1 per cent of schools nationwide, an astonishing achievement. Wilshaw said: "There are a growing number of schools producing fantastic results in areas of deprivation. We've got to stop making excuses for background, culture and ethnicity and get on with it." 

A key part of such advances is adopting strict rules and punishments. "We teach the children the difference between right and wrong, good and evil," said Wilshaw. "They know that if they disrupt class or are rude to teachers, there will be consequences." Sadly, this is not a particularly fashionable way to run a school within Britain's state sector, and many of Wilshaw's detractors criticise the "prison camp" ethos of his old school. Apologists for contemporary British education tend to prefer a more child-centred, progressive outlook where pupils comply through choice, not coercion. 

Such a philosophy forms a convenient alliance with the sociological view. I have lost count of the number of times the terrible behaviour at our school has been blamed on the social background of the pupils, instead of the school's unwillingness to implement a functioning behaviour policy. The sociological view is also used to discount the importance of the different methods employed in rapidly improving schools. In her book School Wars, Melissa Benn implies that the real root of Mossbourne's success is not its traditionalist outlook, but instead a change in the catchment area's social makeup. She points out that the predecessor school had 77 per cent of pupils on free school meals, nearly double the current number. So there are sociological excuses for success as well as failure.